Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Âteşîn ruhsârsın ey gonçe-leb
Dâğ-ı ‘âlem sûzuma oldur sebeb
Bâ‘isü'l-cem‘ mecma‘u'l-bahreyndir
Hâl-i ruhsârın hayâli rûz u şeb
Dûzahu'l-‘uşşâk firkat-hânede
Fikr-i vaslınla gönül eyler tarab
Öz lebinden lehce-i güftârını
Cânım ister hâtırım eyler taleb
Ey nigârım sana cân virdim bana
Bâ‘is oldur kim Nigârîdir lakab
Yârsız nûş itmezem bir dem belî
Kârım olmaz ‘âlem içre bî-Çalab
Zâhidân içre bu gün gördüm seni
Ey Nigârî bu reviş senden ‘aceb
Rind-i rüsvâlıkladır şöhret sana
Lev haşe'llâh müntehabsın müntehab

In English

1. O rosebud-lipped one, you are fire-cheeked; that is the cause of my brand that burns the world.

2. The image of the beauty spot on your cheek is, night and day, the cause of (my heart's) gathering, the meeting place of the two seas.

3. The hell of lovers is the house of separation; yet the heart rejoices at the thought of union with you.

4. My soul longs for the manner of speech from your own lips, my heart seeks it.

5. O my beloved (nigâr), I gave my soul to you; that is the reason my name is Nigârî.

6. Without the beloved I do not drink for a single moment, yes; in the world I have no business without Çalab (God).

7. Today I saw you among the zealots; O Nigârî, this conduct is strange of you.

8. Your fame comes through being a rind and disgraced; God forbid, you are chosen, chosen.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The fifth couplet is a place where Nigârî explains his own pen name: "O my beloved, I gave my soul to you; that is the reason my name is Nigârî." Nigâr means beloved, a beauty, in Persian; Nigârî means one who belongs to the beloved, who bears her name. A. Azmi Bilgin, who prepared the edition, records the tradition that the poet took this pen name in his youth in gratitude to a lady named Nigâr who helped with his studies. The couplet adds nothing to this tradition, but redefines the pen name as the name of having given one's soul to the beloved.

The third couplet of the ghazal, with the line "Dûzahu'l-‘uşşâk firkat-hânede", was quoted on its own in Hüsameddin's entry on Nigârî in his Amasya Tarihi and has been published on our site as a separate page, Couplet 6. Thanks to Bilgin's edition it can be seen that this couplet belongs to an eight-couplet ghazal. Within the whole ghazal the couplet gains a wider meaning: the house of separation is the lovers' hell, but the "mecma‘u'l-bahreyn", the meeting place of the two seas, in the previous couplet carries a hope of meeting within that hell. This phrase, named in the Quranic sura al-Kahf as the place where Moses met Khidr, suggests that in the image of the beloved's beauty spot two seas, perhaps separation and union, flow together.

"Çalab" in the sixth couplet is an old Turkish word for God, known from the poems of Yunus Emre. In a ghazal full of Arabic and Persian words, the entry of this word into the rhyme shows the popular layer in Nigârî's language. The seventh couplet is the poet joking with himself: Nigârî has been seen today among the zealots, and this is strange conduct for him. The last couplet gives the answer: his fame comes from being a rind and from disgrace. The pen name appears three times in this ghazal. Its rhyme words (leb, sebeb, şeb, tarab, taleb, lakab, Çalab, ‘aceb, müntehab) mix the "-eb" and "-ab" sounds, and the pattern is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün".

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources